DO BELIEFS ABOUT RACE DIFFERENCES IN PAIN CONTRIBUTE TO ACTUAL RACE DIFFERENCES IN EXPERIMENTAL PAIN RESPONSE?

Chronic pain is a costly health
problem that affects more than 100 million people in the United States. Race
differences exist in the way that pain is experienced and in how it is treated.
Many biopsychosocial factors contribute to race differences in pain tolerance.
Beliefs about race differences in pain sensitivity may be one of these factors.
Previous research has identified that individuals’ explicit beliefs about their
gender group influence their own pain tolerance on a cold pressor task.
Explicit beliefs about race and pain sensitivity have also been identified but
have yet to be linked to actual pain tolerance. Implicit beliefs about race are
well documented; however, little is known about the extent to which individuals
hold implicit beliefs about race differences in pain sensitivity or whether
these beliefs contribute to actual race differences in pain. My thesis examined
explicit and implicit beliefs about race and pain and explored whether these
beliefs moderated race differences in pain tolerance. I found that White
participants had a higher pain tolerance than Black participants on the cold
pressor task, U=1165.50, pt(131)=-6.83, pt(131)=6.35, pb=-0.37, p=.71, and implicit, b=-21.87, p=.65,
beliefs failed to moderate the relationship between race and pain tolerance.
Further exploration indicated that participants’ comparisons of their own pain
sensitivity to that of their race group moderated the relationship between race
and pain tolerance, ⍵=4.40,
p=.04. These results
provide further insight into race differences in pain tolerance. Researchers
may consider examining explicit and implicit beliefs about race differences in
pain in health care providers to better understand disparities in pain related
recommendations.